The U.S. and Saudi Arabia announced that the White House said industries including artificial intelligence and defense are worth $600 billion, and President Donald Trump began his deal, the first leg of the Three Kingdoms Tour.
The deals launched on Tuesday include a commitment from Saudi Arabia's new state-owned AI company Humain to build an AI infrastructure in the Kingdom over the next five years using hundreds of thousands of NVIDIA's state-of-the-art chips.
This will make it one of the largest AI chip orders for a state company, highlighting the scale of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, making Saudi Arabia a global AI hub and promoting NVIDIA's desire to build a "Sovereign AI" infrastructure.
Nvidia said the first phase of the local investment will involve deploying 18,000 of NVIDIA's latest "Blackwell" servers.
The White House press release praised “Saudi Arabia’s $60 billion commitment to the U.S. investment” and “economic ties that will last for generations.”
It also cites what it calls a "nearly $14.2 billion" agreement to "provide Riyadh with state-of-the-art combat equipment and services from more than a dozen American defense companies."
It added that this will include air force and space capabilities, missile defense, maritime and border security, land force modernization and communications system upgrades.
The United States also mentioned Saudi Arabia's Datavolt's plan to invest $20 billion in US AI data centers and energy infrastructure.
However, it did not provide a timeline for the transaction immediately, which also included contracts for U.S. groups to establish infrastructure projects in the Kingdom.
Trump hopes to get more than $100 million worth of deals and investment commitments on his trip to the Gulf, which will also include stops in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
The traditional American allies are one of the largest buyers of American weapons, with sovereign wealth funds collectively known as more than 3tn, and all expressed ambition to invest in AI.
Many of the most powerful tech executives in the United States are also in Riyadh, including Elon Musk, Openai’s Sam Altman and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, as Saudi Arabia hosts a glittering investment forum. Top financiers including Blackrock's Larry Fink, Blackrock's Stephen Schwarzman and Citigroup's Jane Fraser also attended the meeting.
American tech companies have been looking for a bay that manages some of the world's largest and most active sovereign wealth funds to raise funds and attract investment.
Meanwhile, the Gulf believes AI is a key part of their plan to diversify from oil and develop new industries, hoping to leverage its abundant energy resources and the financial muscle of the sovereign fund.
This is because last week the Trump administration scrapped a Biden-era rule that would have seen Saudi Arabia, as well as dozens of other countries, including India and Singapore, face restrictions on their purchase of the most powerful American-designed AI chips.
Riyadh formed Humain, chaired by Prince Mohammed and owned by the Public Investment Fund ($940 billion sovereign wealth fund) to guide its strategy and investment in the industry on Monday (the day before Trump arrived).
Prince Mohamed has maintained a good relationship with Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner since his first term. A few days after Trump's inauguration in January, he promised to invest $60 billion in the U.S. over the next four years, the same amount announced on Tuesday.
The UAE followed up with similar gestures and pledged in March to invest $140 million over the next 10 years. It also attempts to establish itself as a leading AI hub and makes strategic decisions to invest in U.S. technology.
Analysts question how Gulf states will deploy such a huge amount of capital in the announced timeline, especially Saudi Arabia, as it struggles to cope with lower oil prices, a widening budget deficit and the massive scale of its own household projects.
Trump will fly to Qatar on Wednesday, and Doha is expected to make its own guarantee to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in the United States.
But the president's trip was overshadowed by controversy caused by his decision to accept a $400 million giant jet from Qatar, temporarily replacing Air Force One.
The Katari gift may be the largest in foreign countries or entities in recent history and has been criticized by Trump supporters as well as opponents.
Trump's journey to the region is in the Middle East that is still under the influence of 19 months of conflict triggered by Hamas' October 7, 2023 attacks and Israel's retaliatory offensive in Gaza.
So far, as Trump focuses on investing in trading, there has been little public mention of the crisis in the region.
Other reports by Michael Acton in San Francisco